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- Title
PROTEST AND PROFANATION: Agrarian Revolt and the Little Tradition, Part I.
- Authors
Scott, James C.
- Abstract
The object of this discussion of religious profanation has been to show that any moral order is bound to engender its own antithesis, at least ritually, within folk culture. To say that all Burmans are Buddhists, while true as far as it goes, is to ignore the fact that their religious life contains elements of belief and practice which are symbolically hostile to Buddhism. Much the same may be said of the secular order where the existing distribution of status, wealth, and power meets its symbolic antithesis within folk culture. When the dominant religious order and the dominant secular order are mutually reinforcing, as they often are, religious and secular profanation may represent one and the same phenomenon. In any case, it is clear that at the level of belief and practice opposition to the dominant religion does not await the arrival of "outside agitators," it is already symbolically in place.
- Subjects
MYANMAR; BUDDHISM; RELIGION &; sociology; RELIGIOUS life; SOCIAL movements; PUBLIC demonstrations; POLARITY
- Publication
Theory & Society, 1977, Vol 4, Issue 1, p1
- ISSN
0304-2421
- Publication type
Article